Are men intimidated by highly educated women? Undercover on Tinder.

• Women on Tinder are more selective than men on Tinder. • Women on Tinder have a preference for highly educated men. • Men on Tinder are not intimidated by highly educated women.* • On Tinder, preferences for educational assortative mating are absent. In this study, we examine the impact of an individual's education level on her/his mating success on the mobile dating app Tinder. To do so, we conducted a field experiment on Tinder in which we collected data on 3,600 profile evaluations. In line with previous research on mating preferences from multiple fields, our results indicate a heterogeneous effect of education level by gender: while women strongly prefer a highly educated potential partner, this hypothesis is rejected for men. In contrast with recent influential studies from the field of economics, we do not find any evidence that men would have an aversion to a highly educated potential partner. Additionally, in contrast with most previous research – again from multiple fields – we do not find any evidence for preferences for educational assortative mating, i.e. preferring a partner with a similar education level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]